


Touching Wounds with Skill

by YesBothWays



Series: Love is a Quest [1]
Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Greek myth - Freeform, Poetry, otp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 16:39:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3775828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YesBothWays/pseuds/YesBothWays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a poem from Gabrielle's perspective</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touching Wounds with Skill

**Author's Note:**

  * For [firewings86](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firewings86/gifts).



He twisted the knife in my side,  
I swear, just to feel it. That is,  
So that I would have to feel it.  
I sat shirtless in the cold,  
As you heated instruments with  
A plan to mend me. I felt ashamed.

I could not sort whether I felt  
The shame of my naivety   
Or the shame that he would not feel,  
And so cast off onto me.   
Certainly I had changed some already  
For I bashed his head right open   
Without a thought and gave him   
Worse than he managed to give me.   
I had barely hoped he would not die.

When your hands touched me  
I flinched, and you murmured   
Apology for the one small pain  
That felt it had a line drawn straight   
To you. And I felt then the shape  
Of my own shame, as the thread  
Began to slip through my skin  
Drawing me back together to heal.

I turned to watch your face,  
As this never bothered you   
To be watched at a gruesome art.   
"He twisted the blade," I tried  
it out on you. As I imagined,  
You looked closer at the wound,  
To see what you knew was there.  
You did not even stall the thread.

You were stitching bodies for   
So long, you knew, just how hard  
Souls are to mend. So I turned  
Inward then. I ran the hands of   
My spirit over that fresh cut of shame  
Again and again. I was trained with   
Healing myself long before ever   
I touched you.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel disloyal to my OTP and my home fandom. I've been writing this long Cartinelli story. So I am trying some poems out for the first time ever. I figure some of you love this OTP so much, you might love some only somewhat skilled poems about them!


End file.
